TRANSHUMANISM MEETS DESIGN Humanity+ and Parsons The New School for Design NYC May 14-15 2011
Art and Gene Action: Pathways to Expression
Diversity is a record of the unpredictability of anatomy. Time based living media shows control's drift. Beyond the anarchistic love of results, what can drive the widest range of aestheticised bodies to leap into science's waiting arms? Goals for future research aesthetics should allow celebration of the compulsive meddlesomeness that the primate movers of hereditary cascades perform in their arts. Initially the seductive relationship undulates between a small range of research aesthetics:
± Applied (utilitarian/engineered) ± [pop art]-cynical product optimizer, Fundamental (pure) ± [jazz improvisation]-experimental play as surprise enabler, Health (enhancement) ± [minimalism]-naïve perfectionism, world rejection, longevity alone, Defense (weaponry) ± [tap dance]-sadofuturist thanatopian kitsch or gore cabaret.
Through art historical diversity as a methodology, we can include all of artâs refined movements as pathways to gene expressionism. For instance under-explored avenues include:
Rococo Biolistic Transgenic Arts Synchromism Electroporation Germline Arts DNA Op Art Stemcell Microinjection Arts Constructed Painting Lipid Transfer Genetic Arts 3rd Millennium Eugenic Husbandry Bioarts The Inherited 'Case Against Art' Living Antiart Engineered Arts.
Of course, ethical responsibilities are engraved in the mutagenic application of art and scienceâs broad stroked aesthetics. They are writ in the brains and sinews of those whom have been imprinted upon. Different weights and measures are standard issues when force evolving aesthetics into plants, bacteria, animals, humans, cell lines, embryos etc. Ecological risk benefit analyses fluctuate according to market forecasts. But this project is a pursuit towards Intentional Germline Manipulation (IGM) of the human inheritance. Transgenic humans will live to experience life beyond the limits of benefit or dignity but with added attributes. Analysis of prescriptive sketches:
1) lean on the potential role of genetic determinism in the behavior of germinal choice (including deconstructive drives as a form of laudable sustainability)
2) accentuate the role advisory committees can play in rewarding sociopathy as an economic seedbed for future ethical performances
3) funnel funding allegiance to mutation as an aesthetic beyond intention, disruptive alone and benevolent only in its perverted, contagious virulence.
